A pivotal third season in Manoa has arrived for University of Hawaii basketball coach Gib Arnold.

After going 19-13 in his Division I head coaching debut in 2010-11 and 16-16 in his follow-up campaign of 2011-12, much rides on a 2012-13 Rainbow Warriors team laden with experience in some areas (big men) but lacking it in others (guard play).

Arnold, who has one more season on his contract after this year, can earn a performance-based automatic extension a handful of ways, including: if UH reaches 18 wins with a strength of schedule requirement; 20 wins regardless of schedule strength; or an appearance in the NCAA or NIT.

A number of early player departures in the offseason meant this year’s team will have a much different feel; there are seven true freshmen and nine total newcomers on UH’s 16-man roster.

Arnold’s new-look Rainbow Warriors will try to get off to a winning start at 7 tonight against Maryland-Eastern Shore on the first day of the Outrigger Hotels Rainbow Classic.

The coach sat down with the Star-Advertiser at the season’s outset for a question-and-answer session on where his program stands.

Question: Where do you feel your team stands readiness-wise right now?

Answer: I wish we were a little further along. Offensively, I’ve kind of held back the reins on a lot of the teaching as far as our different sets and called plays. Our motion stuff that after our fast break we flow into, we spent a lot of time on that. I found that with this young group and all of these new faces, we’ve needed to spend a lot more time on that. And haven’t been able to progress as quickly as I would have hoped, but quite honestly as I expected.

We have put a lot of emphasis on the defensive side of the ball. I’m a big believer that you learn defense in October and November, you don’t learn it in March and April. You have to have those in. I’m looking forward to seeing how that translates into these next three games, as we have spent a lot of time on that.

So, I don’t think we’re there yet. Again, we spent the majority of our time just strictly on man-to-man, but we want to be a team that can play multiple defenses. But we haven’t had the time to work on our zones and our traps as much, as again I’d like to with such a young team.

It’s kind of where we expected. I was hoping to be further along but by design we’re still in the early stages with only a few weeks to get ready for these first games.

Q: Where do you feel you guys are at as far as your lineup rotations? Will they change?

A: I think they will continue to evolve. I think we are, again, behind because of the Vander (Joaquim MCL injury) situation. I look back to our first year with Bill Amis, he was out I think eight, 10 games, and he came back and started immediately. And it hurt us. He was our best player, but having missed all that, coming in, it took a while to get him back in the mix. Hopefully we’ve learned from that, we aren’t going to rush Vander in.

But it hurt us in the fact that he was the one guy that knew the system better than anyone else, and the one guy I looked at in being the leader and helping the young bigs. But he wasn’t there to practice. We had to slow it down even more. I didn’t want to add it in, especially offensively, if Vander wasn’t there because we didn’t want to teach it twice. You wanted to have him in there learning. It’s not the same if you’re watching from the sidelines vs. actually being in there. So, again, we rearranged what we were going to teach and when, especially on the offensive side. We’ll get to it. We’ll get to all of it. We’ll get it all in. But it’s not going to be put in as quickly as maybe it has in the past.

Q: What’s your general outlook on Year 3 at UH?

A: I really like where we are, quite honestly. What we’ve done and where we are. We took over a team that had three straight losing seasons, and numbers were dropping as far as attendance and financial. Those are just facts. Those are statistical and financial facts. I think we’ve stopped that, and we’ve turned it, and we’ve won 35 games in two years. I think this year is a young team, but I like that talent. I think we’ve been able to recruit this team the way you should recruit a team, in that you’ve built relationships over months and years vs. days and weeks, which we kind of had to do when we first got here.

And so I think we’re at a position now, yeah, we could start seeing some dividends from the work and the foundation those first two teams put in. And I thought those guys did a heck of a job. But I think we’re at a time where I can say I believe, I feel we’re a program. Although a young program, having only two seasons under us. I think we’re a program vs. a team. And I think there’s a big difference in that. A program, you can redshirt players. In a program you can take a little longer to develop young kids, because you have some upperclassmen who know the system. I think a program is where your upperclassmen teach your underclassmen what’s expected of them. We are there now. We’re there.

I think this team is all on the same page, and really, really will bring it every night and have great team chemistry. From one through 16. I don’t think I could have said that on the first two teams, that everybody was on the same page.

Q: What are your thoughts on the Big West move now?

A: You know, I was one of the two coaches that actually voted against moving into the Big West. I thought at the time that the WAC was a better basketball conference. And I couldn’t speak for the other sports, but as far as basketball, I thought the WAC was a higher ranked conference, and a better conference. At the time, that statistically could be proven. But I’m really glad that the administration made the decision they made, to put us into the Big West, and had the foresight to see what was going to happen to the WAC. Now with the WAC basically being dissolved, there’s no doubt that the best move was to put us in the Big West and to give us stability. With the addition of San Diego State and Boise State next year, I think we’ll be an outstanding basketball conference, and really be able to compete on a national level. And so I really do like the challenge of moving into the Big West, and I think it’s the right move.

Q: On your strengths, do you feel your frontcourt has that mantle?

A: I think our strength is in our frontcourt, yeah, I do. Vander’s my most experienced player, and he anchors that frontcourt. I think that Christian (Standhardinger), although not playing any games for us, has been in the program now a year and understands what we expect. He and I have a great relationship and there’s great understanding of what he needs to accomplish for the team. I think he’s bought in. Davis (Rozitis) and I have been together a long time, and he understands his role. … And then I’ve got two really nice young bigs in Caleb (Dressler) — who we’ve decided to redshirt, but has shown great promise — and I really like Isaac Fotu. I think he’s going to be a special player. We’ve got a really nice mix of upperclass talent, skill, and understanding. And a young, upcoming group.

Q: What about the guards and wings?

A: You have a different challenge with the guards. You don’t have quite as much experience coming back from the guard line. You have one part-time starter in Hauns (Brereton), who has showed signs of being a very good player, and I think will have a very good year for us. He also has some great leadership skills, but he’s not really a rah-rah guy. He kind of leads by example. You have him to rely on.

But you definitely have more question marks, and you’re quite a bit younger. I’m going to have to have a (Brandon) Jawato and a Manroop Clair, and Ozi (Pavlovic), all freshmen, step up and play a much bigger role than you normally would like. The freshmen, their progression needs to be speeded up for us to be successful. And then you’ve got a transfer in Jace (Tavita), who has played that position, but hasn’t played it for basically two years. You’ve got a kid in Garrett Jefferson who I love defensively; he’s a remarkable defender transforming himself into a point guard, which he’s never played his entire life. The hardest position on the floor. So there’s going to be some learning pains with that. And you’ve got a pretty solid guy in Brandon Spearman, who didn’t play a lot at Dayton. Played on a real good junior college team, and he’s been pretty darn steady since he got here. So you’ve got a little bit of everything with that group. I think they’ve got a lot to prove, because your guards inevitably handle the ball more than anyone else. They control tempo. … to be a good team, you need good guards. We’ll have to develop the young guys.